Dream d3077-s: Iron Anchors at Dusk

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the yard at Ospreyhush was enclosed on three sides by sheer bedrock faces, and from each face the iron guy-wires ran upward at steep angles and disappeared into the darkening sky. The anchors were cyclopean, their bases wider than a man is tall, drilled into the stone at intervals no obvious logic could explain. The Relic-Watcher moved along the nearest face and ran a hand across the bolt-heads without speaking.

We had lit a brazier near the center of the yard. The Warden of the Deep Stratum sat closest to the heat, a notebook open across one knee, writing nothing. The Tally-Reader stood at the far edge where the paving gave out to gravel and said, without turning: one hundred and twenty-seven placed, seventy-three not yet walked.

Lano padded a slow circuit of the yard. Her nose went down at each anchor base in turn, pausing, then moving on. At the fourth she sat and looked up at the wire above her, ears forward, tail still.

Rurik had taken a position on top of the lowest anchor block. He sat with his paws folded under his chest, amber eyes moving between the wires.

The Bedrock-Reader knelt at the edge of the paving where a pale seam ran through the foundation course, a faint cyan in the last of the light. The Anomaly-Hand crouched beside them and traced the seam's direction with a finger held just above the surface, not touching. Neither spoke. The Horizon-Surveyor checked the line where the surveyed sheet ended against the visible edge of the plateau and made a note.

The brazier threw orange light against the nearest rockface. The wires above us were invisible now except where they caught the glow at their lowest runs. No wind. The yard held the heat poorly. Rurik blinked once and looked away toward the far anchor.

Lano brought a small flat chip of stone from somewhere and set it down beside the brazier. She circled once and lay with her chin on her forepaws.

The Tally-Reader said: the road behind us is longer than the road ahead that we can name.

Nobody answered. The wires were silent. The seam in the foundation stayed pale and gave no heat.

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